The following list of criteria was obtained from the following sources:

"Assessing the Durability of Formats in a Digital Preservation Environment : the INFORM Methodology" by Stanescu, Andreas (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november04/stanescu/11stanescu.html)
"A Framework for Documenting the Behaviour and Functionality of Digital Objects and Preservation Strategies" a Report for the DELOS Network of Excellence by Carl Rauch, Andreas Rauber, Hans Hofman, Jacques Bogaarts, Remco Verdegem, Franz Pavuza, Julia Ahamer, Max Kaiser (http://www.dpc.delos.info/outputs/index.php)
Library of Congress. (2006). Sustainability of Digital Formats Planning for Library of Congress Collections, from http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats

Containts criteria related to format's technical aspects. Whether the format is widely accepted or simply a niche format. Market share is also known as "adoption". Adoption refers to the degree to which the format is already used by the primary creators, disseminators, or users of information resources. This includes use as a master format, for delivery to end users, and as a means of interchange between systems. If a format is widely adopted, it is less likely to become obsolete rapidly, and tools for migration and emulation are more likely to emerge from industry without specific investment by archival institutions. Evidence of wide adoption of a digital format includes bundling of tools with personal computers, native support in Web browsers or market-leading content creation tools, including those intended for professional use, and the existence of many competing products for creation, manipulation, or rendering of digital objects in the format. In some cases, the existence and exploitation of underlying patents may inhibit adoption, particularly if license terms include royalties based on content usage. A format that has been reviewed by other archival institutions and accepted as a preferred or supported archival format also provides evidence of adoption. Whether the creating entity provides good technical support on the format. Whether the format has been published by a standards organisation. Whether specification can be independently inspected. Whether the format supports any type of compression. Whether the format only supports a lossy type of compression. Whether the format supports tranparency features. Whether the format may contain embedded metadata. Whether or not royalties or license fees are or may be requested. Whether there are decoders whose source can be independently inspected. Whether revisions have maintained support for backward compatibility. Whether the format specification is well documented. Whether competing or similar formats or components exist. Whether DRM (Digital Rights Management), encryption or digital signatures can be used. Whether revisions happen so fast that the archive cannot keep up with demand. Whether extensions, such as executable sections or narrowly supported features, can be added to the format. How old is the format, i.e. how many months have passed since the format has been officially lauched. Transparency refers to the degree to which the digital representation is open to direct analysis with basic tools, including human readability using a text-only editor. Digital formats in which the underlying information is represented simply and directly will be easier to migrate to new formats and more susceptible to digital archaeology; development of rendering software for new technical environments or conversion software based on the "universal virtual computer" concept proposed by Raymond Lorie will be simpler. Transparency is enhanced if textual content (including metadata embedded in files for non-text content) is encoded in standard character encodings (e.g., UNICODE in the UTF-8 encoding) and stored in natural reading order. For preserving software programs, source code is much more transparent than compiled code. For non-textual information, standard or basic representations are more transparent than those optimized for more efficient processing, storage or bandwidth. Examples of direct forms of encoding include, for raster images, an uncompressed bit-map and for sound, pulse code modulation with linear quantization. For numeric data, standard representations exist for signed integers, decimal numbers, and binary floating point numbers of different precisions (e.g., IEEE 754-1985 and 854-1987, currently undergoing revision). Many digital formats used for disseminating content employ encryption or compression. Encryption is incompatible with transparency; compression inhibits transparency. However, for practical reasons, some digital audio, images, and video may never be stored in an uncompressed form, even when created. Archival repositories must certainly accept content compressed using publicly disclosed and widely adopted algorithms that are either lossless or have a degree of lossy compression that is acceptable to the creator, publisher, or primary user as a master version. The transparency factor relates to formats used for archival storage of content. Use of lossless compression or encryption for the express purpose of efficient and secure transmission of content objects to or from a repository is expected to be routine. Contains criteria related to currently available software capable of reading/decoding the format. Whether the reader is produced by a single entity. Whether the format can only be read by one piece of software. Whether the source of the reader can be independently inspected. Whether the reader software can be run on various platforms (e.g. operating systems or hardware).